


Lines

by crimsonepitaph



Series: Rockstars Verse [3]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Addiction, Drug Use, M/M, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 12:04:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17898101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonepitaph/pseuds/crimsonepitaph
Summary: Jensen interrupts Jared's quiet moment.





	Lines

**Author's Note:**

> **Author's note #1** : We're still before _Edges_ timeline-wise, with Jared POV.  
>  **Author's note #2** : Thank you borgmama1of5 for taking a look & giving me feedback!

It’s definitely strange, how living on the edge of reality can turn normal, habitual and sometimes, even pleasant. Bleakness of the world becomes warmth when you embrace it, cocoon yourself in its stone solid walls.

Thoughts come and go.

They flow, and they ebb, and they caress the buildings in front of Jared like feathers falling from the sky, rainbow of muted colors, insignificant, light.

The smoke lifts in front of his eyes.

The ground is cold and uncomfortable.

The rumble of the street reaches his ears, protests the sober moment, the trembling fingers on the cigarette.

_I - I’m not an addict_.

So he said, multiple times. To Tom, the band, Chad…to himself, all the time.

Lyrics come out. Eyes red, mind far away, body barely under command. The stage.

…and smoke, mirrors, truest self.

Or this one.

Rational. Aware. At war.

Being awake means being knowledgeable of all his mistakes. This Jared is an enemy soldier. It’s questionable whether all the minor points of his life were those that declared war, or if it was Jared himself.

“...hey.”

Jensen’s voice. Present, definitely, sandpaper-rough, cutting through the air like a knife. Jared raises his head slightly. Gestures in greeting with the hand and the fingers with the cigarette.

“I see you found my secret spot,” Jensen says, a grin in his voice, rustle of the pebbles underneath his feet as he sits down on a small, rectangular-shaped slab of concrete.

Jared doesn’t have the energy to protest; ten years in this building, in this recording studio, ten years of the same smoking habit. Versus weeks.

Jensen taps Jared’s ankle lightly with his boot.

When Jared meets his gaze, Jensen moves his to the pack of cigaretttes forgotten in Jared’s hand. So Jared throws it, along with the red-and-black lighter shining like a precious stone between the artsy and impractical roof flooring choice.

“Thanks.”

Yeah.

He wishes he could say it out loud.

Instead, Jared just nods.

Jensen stays silent, uncomfortable position with legs stretched out and a constant search for something to lean his back on. Jared took the ventilation shack walls. The only fluid movement is the smoke rising, and Jared’s own search for something to say, a desire buried so deep in the fear of getting out something wrong that it almost combines with the transparent, gray fog.

“Are you coming back?” Jensen asks.

He is.

“What, you think I came here to jump?”

It’s a joke, mostly, even without the necessary smile, the tone deadpan.

Jensen watches him closely. “Did you?”

Not today. Not ever, really. What Jared feeds on is the illusion that there is a stop.

“Wouldn’t be a high enough fall,” he answers.

The building has five stories. Old. Brick walls, legacy university like. An entire section for music. A modern one. Roof parties with whimsical lights and soothing strums of acoustic guitars. Halls. Spaces. Big, tiny, huge, small.

So why does Jared feel like there’s no air at all? Anywhere?

Like he’s kept in a cage of his own body, breath solidifying in metal bars, glimpses of the world outside that make him scream with the impotency of not being able to get out.

“You have to say something, too, you know, for this to work.”

Jared puts out the cigarette stump, wordlessly requests his pack back to light another one.

“Say to you?”

Right hand fingers clasp down like scissors on the cigarette, the protective shape of his left hand shields the flame and Jared from the response.

“Nah, man. To everyone,” Jensen shrugs.

That confuses Jared. He raises his gaze, meets green eyes that were waiting.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well,” Jensen muses, and Jared can’t ever figure out when the guy’s serious and when he’s pulling an elaborate prank, “You sing…and sometimes ask about whether Chris tuned his guitar, but that’s about the extent of the effort you put into this band.”

“Uh-huh,” Jared frowns. Then, after a short pause, “So, what, you’re band police now?”

Jared shouldn’t be an asshole. But it’s not a conscious choice anymore; it’s an identity forged in all his flaws.

Jensen shrugs, impassive. “Want this to work?”

No. Yes. Maybe.

If he was different. Other -

His life, if he could just start from scratch. Or just the fucked up choices that at the time didn’t feel like choices at all.

“Whatever,” is all Jared says.

“Why?”

It was meant to be over. Decisive. Conclusive. Vague. Precursor to frustration and silence.

But Jensen presses.

“Dude,” Jensen continues, “what you’re going through - “

“I’m not going through anything.”

Jensen laughs, short and cruel. “Of course you aren’t.”

Jared knows how this goes. It’s not the first time.

“You gonna tell me that my attitude affects the band?”

It should become the chorus in one of their songs. Who knows, Jared might just slip it in at the next one.

“No,” Jensen declares, single word, seal to the question, robbing Jared of the silence he wished for before.

It’s infuriating.

Why doesn’t he say something else?

Why does he disturb Jared’s carefully draped blanket of nonchalance?

“...so?”

The ashes fall from the cigarette in Jared’s hand.

Jensen raises an eyebrow. “So what?”

“What are you going to tell me?”

It’s more than Jared thought he could get out.

But Jensen doesn’t answer. Instead, he gets up, throws the cigarette stub and stomps it. Then steps. One. Then further from Jared. Ten. Eleven. Now, close to the edge of the roof.

Boots, black, jeans that are just tight enough, simple, unlike a rock star. T-shirt, leather vest, sculpted arms covered in tattoos and strength, Jensen’s whole body, a presence, bigger than anyone has a right.

He spreads his arms.

Steps on the ledge.

Panic rises in Jared’s chest. Faint, like it had forgotten its proper place.

“The fuck are you doing?”

Jared’s about to stand up. He does.

The sound of Jensen’s boots hitting concrete, footsteps, the rhythm of Jared’s breath.

He doesn’t come down.

Jared throws his almost untouched cigarette to the ground, takes a step forward.

Jensen turns towards him. Jared’s heart does a somersault.

Grinning. Green. Arms. Tattoos. Crazy.

No coherent thoughts pass through Jared’s mind.

“You should stop,” Jensen warns, but his lips are curved, the tone is playful. This isn’t the voice of someone who’s about to plummet to death.

“Stop what?”

“Coming towards me.”

Jared frowns. “You’re standing with your back to a five story fall. What do you want me to do, watch?”

“Talk,” is Jensen’s aberrant reply.

Jared shifts his weight from one foot to another. He’s uncertain. The predictable is gone.

“You’re threatening me?”

Jensen laughs. “Oh, no,” he corrects, eyes sparkling. Is he drunk? “You may be one of a kind, but I wouldn’t throw everything away on this kind of a hunch.”

_Hunch. One of a kind. Everything. On what would you, then? No, I wouldn’t jump._

“What’s the fucking point, then, Ackles?” Jared grits through his teeth.

The asshole is standing there, like he’s infallible, like this isn’t fucked up, like the wind cares about the meaning of the strings tattoed on his arms. The scars.

“Would you come closer, now that I’ve told you?” Jensen asks, a question he shouldn’t, didn’t have to voice out loud.

Silence. Vibration. Faint hum in Jared’s ears.

The street below, a monster ready to swallow the figurine at the top.

Jensen fixes Jared with his gaze. It’s the first time he’s serious.

“Then you know I understand.”

Instinct.

“Understand what?”

“You.”

For a moment, Jared isn’t Jared anymore. He’s both the enemy soldier and himself. But then he remembers how improbable is that.

Jared searches Jensen’s eyes for a moment. Then decides. “I’m leaving.”

He almost turns.

Almost reaches the spot where the lighter and the empty pack slid out of his lap in the haste to get up.

A thump.

Rustling.

Jared watches Jensen jump, inward, close, _here,_ not -  

The reaction is seismic. Invisible. Underneath, skin prickling with the aftermath. Jared’s breath spreads out in his whole body.

But the world doesn’t stop for Jared to think about what’s happened.

Jensen comes in front of him, close, a few feet away.

Just until every one of Jared’s internal alarms goes off.

He hates it.

Jensen smirks. “Felt that, didn’t you?”

Plan well executed.

Jared’s left spinning, grabbing at the edges of familiar.

Assurance.

Skin immersed in black tar, shapes that slide beside Jared, a palm on his collarbone, electric, lightning bolt touch.

And Jensen, just like that, moment and idea… he’s gone.

The smoke trails behind him, and Jared has to close his eyes, inhale to a count of five until he finally feels like the strength of it won’t choke him out.

  


End file.
